Texas' GOP not buying amnesty

Updated 11:08 pm, Thursday, February 14, 2013

The nation's growing Hispanic voter base may be driving the immigration debate in Washington. But in GOP-held Texas congressional districts, it hardly has made a mark.

While some top Republican leaders have endorsed a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million undocumented residents, the loudest GOP voices to emerge against the proposal in recent weeks have come from Texas congressmen who hail from districts with large Hispanic constituencies.

Of the state's 11 Republican-held congressional districts with Hispanic populations of at least 25 percent, seven are represented by lawmakers who already have ruled out supporting any amnesty plan, San Antonio Express-News interviews and analysis of their recent public statements show.

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That divide increasingly concerns those involved in drafting reform legislation. They fear the demographic shifts pressuring Republicans to compromise at the national level may carry little incentive for conservative legislators in their districts back home.

“We've been down this road before with politicians promising to enforce the law in return for amnesty,” said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, whose northern San Antonio district is 28 percent Hispanic, according to U.S. Census data. “Granting amnesty actually compounds the problem by encouraging more illegal immigration.”

The pathway to citizenship — or “amnesty,” to borrow the preferred term among its opponents — is a central plank in the reform proposals put forth last month both by President Barack Obama and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators led by John McCain, R.-Ariz., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The details of both plans remain hazy. But the senators' proposal requires the nation's borders be declared secure, before undocumented residents could begin a tough process that would require them to learn English, pay back taxes and pass a background check before attaining citizenship.

So far, Texas' Democratic congressional caucus has widely endorsed the proposal. And earlier this week, a group of moderate Texas Republicans from the law enforcement, faith and business communities urged their own party's representatives in Congress to engage in a serious debate.

But if public rhetoric is any indication, lawmakers like Houston-area Republican Rep. John Culberson already have made up their minds.

“I am strongly opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants,” he says on his website. “Respect for the rule of law is a hallmark of our democracy, and one of the reasons America has the largest immigrant populations in the world.”

Culberson, whose Houston-area constituency is more than one-third Hispanic, didn't respond to requests for an interview.

His stance mirrors that of his caucus colleagues facing similar demographic trends in districts clustered primarily in the Texas Panhandle and in suburban Dallas and Houston.

They're joined by the state's two Republican U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both of whom have spoken out against the citizenship pathway.

U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold of Corpus Christi, represents one of the most heavily Hispanic, Republican-held congressional districts in the nation. Even he has eyed the proposal with skepticism.

“By granting a pathway to citizenship, how do we avoid creating an incentive for people to continue to come here?” he asked during a hearing last week of the House Judiciary Committee. “That's the big stumbling point for most of my constituents,” more than half of whom are Hispanic.

Their tone stands in stark contrast to Republicans like McCain, who cited the “smaller number of our Hispanic citizens who are voting Republican” as motivation for his group's willingness to compromise.

Explaining why that same trend doesn't seem to worry lawmakers like Smith, Farenthold and Culberson comes down to a matter of the chess board on which they are playing, said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University.

“For people who have to win statewide or presidential races, continuing to alienate Hispanic voters will severely damage the Republican Party's prospects,” Jones said. “That's juxtaposed with the attitude of many individual members of Congress.”

And after last year's redistricting process, many of those Texas Republicans now are ensconced in even safer conservative districts. The greatest danger to their incumbency comes not from a future Democratic opponent but from an even more conservative primary challenger, said Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based GOP consultant.

“The question is where are they most vulnerable — among their constituents at large or their conservative voter base in a primary?” he said.

That might explain why even those Texas GOP congressmen with significant Hispanic constituencies who haven't ruled a citizenship option aren't exactly eager to publicly state their views.

His district, which stretches between Austin and Houston, is just more than a quarter Hispanic.

“Rep. McCaul would have to see the proposal,” spokesman Mike Rosen said.

Ted Poe, chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee, represents a 30 percent Hispanic district in the Houston area. He did not respond to requests last week to clarify his stance.

But after endorsing an expanded guest worker program last year, he became the subject of a withering campaign from the conservative, anti-reform group ALIPAC, who accused Poe of throwing in his lot with the “illegal alien invasion and amnesty supporters.”

And though their Hispanic constituencies may be growing, for congressmen like Smith, Poe, McCaul and Farenthold that remains, at least for now, primarily conservative Anglo voters. Hispanic voter turnout in Texas has historically hovered around 20 percent.

“They know that they have time before the Hispanic vote becomes a threat to their status,” Jillson said. “The question is: What do they do with that time?”